Straight walled containers, such as aluminum containers, steel containers and other containers for tinned goods are widely used in the food industry. In particular, tinned soups, vegetables, juices and soft drinks are currently packaged in straight walled aluminum or steel containers. These containers must be packaged in a multi-pack format for efficient shipping. The multi-pack format requires outer packing support for loading onto pallets.
Full corrugated boxes or shrink wrapped units are generally used to package straight walled containers for transit. Full corrugated boxes are excessively wasteful of cardboard. There is an ongoing trend to reduce total packaging content by at least 10%. Currently, two U.S. States have enacted laws requiring 10% packaging reductions. Replacing the corrugated boxes with trays on which the containers are nested and then shrink wrapped reduces the packaging but creates problems regarding the structural integrity of the trays.
In particular, shrink wrapped trays lack horizontal or lateral stability when piled onto pallets for shipping. The resulting unstable pallet loads are prone to a high rate of damage during transit.
In addition, shrink wrapping is not energy efficient. Extensive energy is required to heat the wrap, most of which is lost to the ambient surroundings.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,826,357 and 4,998,615 are examples of packaging which addresses the structural problem. Dividers or stackers elements are added in order to improve the stability of the packages. The necessity of dividers and stacker elements precludes any significant reduction in packaging.
Canadian Patent No. 1,191,819 describes a multi-package assembly. The packages are sandwiched between two sheets of cardboard and held together by strips of frangible adhesive. This type of packaging results in reduced packaging. However, this packaging does not provide lateral structural integrity sufficient to prevent sideways shifting of packages loaded onto a pallet.